Day 7.256: Grey and white and red all over

A week or so ago, I posted two very poor cell-phone photos of birds on the beach taken during my run.  A few days later I received this by email:

Don't have a view on the first picture but I suggest semipalmated plover for the second.

Dad

Last Friday, we went for a walk on the beach a mile or so from where I'd seen them and noticed two things. Firstly, there were lots of birds again - at least some of which were the same kind I'd seen before. This time I had a proper camera with me:

I think they are probably semipalmated sandpipers, although it seemed that there were two different sized birds, so some of them may be something else.  The "semipalmated" word they share with the plovers from my Dad's identification means "half-webbed" referring to their feet, but is, according to my sources a bit of an exaggeration - fat-toed is probably more accurate,

The second thing we noticed was that the red seaweed they were pecking around in smelled foul. It is actually algae Heterosiphonia japonica - invading from Japan. More popular with the sandpipers than it would have been with the tourists if it had arrived a couple of weeks earlier.